Chauncey Bailey Killers Both Sentenced to Life
More Latinos in College Than Blacks, but With a Caveat
Washington Post Starts Black-Oriented Section
Online TV News Directors of Color at Third-Highest Level Ever
Dee Dee Thomas Named Executive Producer at NBC News
ESPN Creates Buzz With White “Michael Vick”
In ’50s, Martin Luther King Wrote Advice Column
Errol Cooley, brother of slain journalist Chauncey Bailey, speaks to the news media after the sentencing of Yusef Bey IV and Antoine Mackey in Oakland, Calif. (Credit: Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)
Chauncey Bailey Killers Both Sentenced to Life
“Former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusef Bey IV was sentenced Friday to three consecutive life terms in prison, and bakery associate Antoine Mackey to two, for their roles in the 2007 murders of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey and two other men,” Josh Richman and Thomas Peele wrote Friday for the Chauncey Bailey Project.
” ‘Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine Chauncey’s life would end because of a story,’ Robin Hardin-Bailey, Bailey’s ex-wife, told the court during the sentencing hearing.
” ‘I forgive you because the Chauncey Bailey I knew, the Chauncey Bailey who came here to right the wrongs, to tell the stories of people who had no voice, I believe that he would forgive you too,’ she said.
“Bey IV ordered the murder of Bailey to stop the journalist from writing a story about strife at the bakery. A jury also found Bey IV had ordered Mackey to kill Michael Wills, a sous chef on a walk to the corner store, only because he was white, and had ordered bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard to kill homeless man Odell Roberson in a personal vendetta.
“Bey IV and Mackey, both 25, were convicted in June. Broussard, 23, confessed to the murders and testified against Bey IV and Mackey in return for a 25-year prison term; he was sentenced Aug. 12.”
More Latinos in College Than Blacks, but With a Caveat
“After all the bad news about Latino academic achievement, here’s a ray of hope: College enrollment among Latinos ages 18 to 24 sky-rocketed 24% last year, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, leading to an all-time high in the total numbers of Latino college students,” Fox News Latino reported Thursday.
“Young Hispanics for the first time outnumbered young blacks on campus, even though young black college enrollment has also grown steadily for decades,” the Pew report said.
However, as Fox News Latino noted, “Much of the growth in Latino enrollment has been through community colleges. Last fall, 56% of Latino students were enrolled at four-year institutions, proportionally less than Asian (78%), white (73%), and black (63%) students.”
It is unclear whether the surge in Latino enrollment translates into an increase in Latino journalism students.
Digest of Education Statistics figures from the 2008-09 school year, the last year for which such figures are available, show that of 78,009 bachelors degrees in communications, journalism and related programs 59,112 went to whites, 7,666 to blacks, 5,677 to Hispanics, 3,565 to Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, 472 to American Indians and Alaska Natives and 1,547 to nonresident aliens.
For masters degrees in the same field, of 7,092 granted, 4,408 were to whites, 798 to blacks, 413 to Hispanics, 351 to Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, 57 to American Indians/Alaska Natives and 1,085 to nonresident aliens.
The Pew figures are from 2010 census data.
Writing on her Latina Lista blog, Marisa Treviño said it was understandable that so many Latinos were in community colleges rather than four-year institutions because “With so many Latino families middle to low-income, community college is the only affordable option.’
She added, “The report went on to explain that while it’s true more Latino students understand the value of higher education and want it and so are enrolling at higher rates, they’re not finishing at those same rates.’
“ACT released their findings recently on the college readiness skills of Latino students and found that more Latino students were taking the ACT. Though more were taking the specialized tests, more were not passing them.
“Could this disparity, found with both the ACT and in the Pew report, be because Latino students aren’t receiving the proper high school instruction they desperately need to succeed in college?”
TheRootDC.com features both aggregated and original content.
Washington Post Starts Black-Oriented Section Online
The Washington Post Thursday unveiled a local-news website section devoted to African American news, a concept few have attempted since the New York Times met opposition from the black press when it attempted to start a “black” newspaper in Gainesville, Fla., in 2005.
The paper let its editor go and redefined the product as a “community” paper.
Since then, however, white-owned media have started a number of Internet projects targeting the black community nationally and Latino communities both nationally and locally.
“The Root DC will serve as a must-read source of content from a black perspective with features including daily updated event listings, profiles of people around the region, video stories, and reader essays about things or people that bind, uplift, and annoy the community,” an announcement said. The Post Co. already owns theRoot.com, which has a national focus.
“By creating The Root DC, we are able to expand on The Post’s local coverage by providing the African-American community with more of the content it is looking for in a way that makes it easy to access news, share information, and engage online,” said Liz Spayd, a Post managing editor, said in the release.
“The Root DC includes aggregated content from The Washington Post and original reporting by Robert Pierre, Editor of The Root DC, who will write a weekly column; Hamil Harris, who will focus on faith and religion; Chris Jenkins, staff writer; and other Post reporters and contributors.
“Readers also can find The Root DC on B2 of the newspaper’s Metro section each Friday.”
In a note to readers, Pierre wrote, “It’s a new space that’s all about acknowledgement and conversation, a place to laugh and cry and argue. Oh, and did I mention, to see yourself. This site is meant, in part, to address one of the most persistent criticisms of journalism that I have heard over the past two decades: it doesn’t focus on what matters to you.”
TV News Directors of Color at Third-Highest Level Ever
“The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey finds that the percentage of minorities rose in both television and radio [PDF]. The percentage of minority news directors in television hit its third highest level ever and is the highest ever at non-Hispanic stations,” Bob Papper reported this week in his latest survey for the Radio-Television Digital News Association.
“On the flip side, most of the gains were small, and the percentage of minorities in TV news remained at the low end of the narrow band within which the percentages have floated for the last decade.
“There was no good news for women in radio and television news. Women in TV news and women TV news directors stayed largely the same — each had a slight dip — and women in radio news and women radio news directors both fell noticeably.
“As far as minorities are concerned, the bigger picture remains unchanged. In the last 21 years, the minority population in the U.S. has risen 9.5 percent; but the minority workforce in TV news is up 2.7 percent, and the minority workforce in radio is actually down from what it was two decades ago. Still, TV news diversity remains far ahead of newspaper{s].”
Dee Dee Thomas Named Executive Producer at NBC News
Dee Dee Thomas has been named executive producer of the weekend editions of “Today,” NBC News announced on Thursday.
She is the first African American woman to hold an executive producer position since Lyne Pitts held the same position in 2006. Pitts went on to become a network vice president before leaving NBC in 2009.
The announcement about Thomas “was made by ‘Today’ executive producer Jim Bell and is effective September 6. Most recently, Thomas served as senior producer of ‘Today,’ where she oversaw the 8 a.m. hour of the top-rated morning news program,” the announcement said.
“. . . In her new role, Thomas will oversee all aspects of ‘Weekend Today,’ working closely with the broadcast’s anchors Lester Holt, Amy Robach and Jenna Wolfe and the show’s team of talented producers.?
“As senior producer at ‘Today,’ Thomas was responsible for the planning and execution of several special broadcasts including the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with Matt Lauer and Al Roker reporting live from New Orleans.”
Photo illustration imagines a white Michael Vick. (Credit: D’arcy Hyde for ESPN The Magazine)
ESPN Creates Buzz With White “Michael Vick”
“The latest ESPN The Magazine focusing exclusively on Michael Vick is causing a stir for an illustration of a racially altered version of the Eagles quarterback with the headline, ‘What If Michael Vick Were White?’ ” Sportsjournalism.org reported.
“The article’s author, Touré, claims he asked the magazine not to use the photo illustration or headline.
“Touré says they undermine his premise that Vick’s story is not possible without the circumstances (race, class, community, family) that have contributed to his identity.”
In ’50s, Martin Luther King Wrote Advice Column
“ ‘There can be unity where there is not uniformity.’
“That’s the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Anna Holmes wrote Thursday for the Washington Post. “It’s a powerful sentiment — and an instructive one, especially in this era of hyperpartisanship — but you won’t find it anywhere on the 450-foot inscription wall that makes up part of the MLK National Memorial. Actually, you won’t find it in most tributes to the late civil rights leader, because he wrote it in June 1958 to a concerned churchgoer as part of a magazine advice column.
“That magazine was Ebony, and, for a little over a year between 1957 and 1958, the black-owned monthly published a King-penned series called ‘Advice for Living.’ At the time, King was just starting to come to international prominence: In February 1957, he made his first appearance on the cover of Time, thanks to his leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott. He had already appeared in Ebony numerous times when the magazine’s editors, inspired — and overwhelmed — by the volume of mail addressed to King, asked him to pen an advice column. ‘Let the man that led the Montgomery boycott lead you into happier living,’ read an advertisement in Ebony’s sister publication, Jet. . . .”
- Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: What would Martin Luther King Jr. think of $120 million monument?
- Washington Post section: The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Short Takes
“New Orleans Fox affiliate WVUE-TV has hired well-traveled Fred Hickman as sports director,” Dave Walker reported Thursday for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “He replaces John Henry Smith, who departed in June, and is expected to start on the air next week. The hire was announced to WVUE staffers on Thursday.”
- Lola Ogunnaike, contributor to NBC’s “Today” show and former New York Times reporter, traveled with the first family to southern Africa last month and documents their experiences in a half-hour show on BET, “Michelle Obama on a Mission: Impact Africa” airing Sunday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.
- The Asian American Journalists Association said Thursday it was disheartened by MediaNews Group’s announcement that it plans to condense 11 newspapers into two in the San Francisco Bay Area. “AAJA, which advocates for fair and accurate news coverage and greater diversity in newsrooms, believes that both of those goals are threatened by plans to close MediaNews newsrooms and cut an estimated 120 media jobs — including 40 from the ranks of journalists,” the association said.
- Syndicated radio talk-show host Warren Ballentine, who in 2006 helped organize a march to support black students in Jena, La., says the moment should have been more than it was. “We came to Jena in the hundreds of [thousands] and we had a chance to start a movement, but instead, we had just a moment, albeit too many, it was a good moment,” he wrote Friday for theGrio.com. “But imagine if we had let Jena be the spark for change in all our communities. Then not only would the Jena 6 have had justice, maybe — just maybe — we would have had a movement!”
- NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous praised MSNBC’s decision to name the Rev. Al Sharpton host of his own “PoliticsNation” show at 6 pm. “This is a positive step towards addressing the dearth of African American voices in prime time news,” Jealous said in a statement. In the Daily Beast, Lloyd Grove spoke with Sharpton about critics who questioned his selection.
- “In a novel new editorial program to leverage the online community, Ebony magazine has recruited beauty bloggers to judge the best products for Black American women,” minonline reported on Tuesday. “In the new issue of Ebony, the first Beauty and Grooming Awards singles out over 50 items, from ‘oil-zapping cleansers’ to ‘illuminating bronzers,’ ‘brow enhancers’ to “wrap lotions.’ ”
- “PR Week, a stalwart trade publication, churned out a special edition in July anointing ’50 PR Power Elites,'” Gwen McKinney, president of her own Washington public relations firm, blogged. “In a field where women dominate, a whopping 39 of the 50 titans were men. None were African Americans! . . .PR Week’s Barrett got it right when he said he doesn’t see race. Apparently having the luxury to be blind to color, he sees only people who look like him. Diversity requires an intentional and focused gaze on race.”
- In Syria, “Ali Ferzat, a famous Syrian cartoonist critical of the government, was abducted and severely beaten by masked gunmen as he left his office early on Thursday in Damascus, international media reported, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. “The attackers stomped on his hands and said the beating was a warning, the Associated Press said. He was dumped bleeding on a roadside several hours later.”
- “The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of four Italian journalists kidnapped Wednesday, but remains concerned about the safety of at least six Libyan journalists who have been missing since the start of the uprising in February,” the press freedom group said Thursday. “The whereabouts of the six Libyan journalists who have been missing for the past six months are still unknown. Two of them were detained in late February, but are still unaccounted for.”
- The late U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl and South African editor Raymond Louw were named World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute. Between 1966 and 1977, Louw, chairperson of the South African Press Council, was editor of the noted anti-apartheid. Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was murdered in Pakistan in 2002. newspaper the Rand Daily Mail.
- “Mexican authorities say the body of an online newspaper journalist has been found a day after he was kidnapped,” the Huffington Post reported Thursday. “Sinaloa state assistant prosecutor Martin Robles says the body of 53-year-old Humberto Millan Salazar was found in a farm building outside the city of Culiacan with a gunshot wound in the face.”
